


Rain

by Magz (sparklepocalypse)



Category: Queer as Folk (US) RPF
Genre: Angst, Infidelity, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4528059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklepocalypse/pseuds/Magz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rain fell heavily against the windows of the Roadside Inn on the outskirts of Toronto, and inside room 11, two men lay in bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rain

**Author's Note:**

> This came at me all at once, and I couldn't do anything but let it flow out of my fingers onto the screen. It's not my usual style.

Rain fell heavily against the windows of the Roadside Inn on the outskirts of Toronto, and inside room 11, two men lay in bed. One slept peacefully. The other was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

After several fruitless tosses and turns and a halfhearted pillow punch, Gale sat up with a heavy sigh and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The sheets fell to his waist, only partially covering his left thigh and leaving the upper curve of his ass bare to the air-conditioned coolness of the room. He curled in on himself a bit, rubbing his eyes and resting his face in his hands.

Gale never could find it in himself to sleep when he and Randy were done, always lying in the same bed, in the same room, in the same Roadside Inn as they had that first rainy night. At first it'd been because _holy fuck_ , he'd just had the hottest sex ever, and the fact that it was with his male co-star had caused him to have a mini panic attack right there in the slightly lumpy bed with its slightly coarse sheets abrading his oversensitive, sweaty skin.

He'd been exhausted, and Randy could tell, when they had their obligatory morning-after talk. Clichés had been spouted, such as, 'It doesn't have to mean anything,' and Gale remembered feeling a little surprised at the fact that Randy wasn't freaking out because he'd cheated on his boyfriend. He remembered wondering if Randy and Simon were as serious as Randy insisted they were.

In time, 'It doesn't have to mean anything' had slowly become 'It _can't_ mean anything,' and that's when Gale had started to close in on himself. Randy hadn't really noticed. As perceptive as he normally was when it came to reading people, it seemed that he was too busy, too sidetracked by his life [boyfriend job family friends future] to notice that Gale was in the middle of an identity crisis. Gale, during their rainy-night affair, had gone from meeting Randy at the Roadside Inn every night it rained because the sex was good and it was convenient, to showing up because he'd started to _need_ it. He'd developed a new character inside his head, Gale That Was, and since Gale That Was, essentially, was a manifestation of his past, it was easy to slip into that persona whenever he was around others. It was imperative that Randy not find out about his newly-developed feelings. He didn't need to burden himself with the fact that Gale was clingy and a hopeless romantic, and the fact that ever since they'd first fallen, dripping wet, into the bed of room 11, Gale'd been a little bit in love.

Going into this... whatever it was, they'd both had their eyes open, knowing that it was a temporary thing, that Randy had a _boyfriend_ , that it was doomed from the start to be just a fling among friends. It was when Gale started wondering what it was like to be the man that Randy called late at night just to listen to his breathing, or to be the man who was allowed to touch him like they touched one another in room 11 of the Roadside Inn, or to be the man that Randy smiled for, that things had started to go to shit. And Gale had no idea how to make things right again without drawing attention to himself, so instead he just sat idly by and wore the mask of Gale That Was.

In April, Simon came and visited for two weeks. The immediate difference in Randy's personality was evident to anyone with eyes. He _glowed_ in the presence of his boyfriend. Gale That Was seemed to be a permanent fixture from the moment Gale stepped out of his apartment each morning until he got home each night.

It rained three times while Simon was in Toronto.

Gale stayed home and watched fat droplets of water hit his windows and roll down. His breath fogged up the panes of glass and his vision blurred, and tears rolled down his cheeks like rain.

 

It took a moment for Gale to realize that Randy had asked him something, and was now looking at him expectantly. He shook his head to clear the fog that seemed to obscure all reasonable thought whenever his co-star was near, and asked him to repeat the question.

When Randy heaved a somewhat exasperated sigh and asked Gale why he hadn't come to the Roadside Inn on those three rainy nights, Gale's entire body clenched and he thought he might vomit. He wasn't ready to deal with this yet, he hadn't even decided exactly why he was feeling what he was feeling when it came to Randy, so he blurted the first words he could without tripping over his sentence and then fled to his trailer, muttering something about going over his lines.

His eyes widened and he barely made it to his trash can in time, ten minutes later, when he realized that he'd just told Randy that he was in love with him.

Someone knocked on his trailer door while his head was still buried in the wastebasket, and he managed to grunt at them weakly, hoping that they went away, before dry heaves hit. Unfortunately the fates weren't on his side, and the door opened. He registered a gentle hand on his back, rubbing slowly.

Gale stood, his insides still shuddering, and wiped his mouth on a tissue, then pulled out a pack of gum. He popped a stick into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, then turned to face Randy, slowly.

Neither of them said anything for a long time, and Gale finally left, walking out of the trailer and into a light spring rain. He turned his face to the sky, wrapped his arms around his body, and everything that had broken in the last few weeks seemingly disappeared. And it felt like it was over, and maybe the sun would finally shine.


End file.
